


Unbroken Souls

by junko



Series: 'Tails' of Zabimaru [17]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Kyouraku and Renji talk about Iife and death on road back to Academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbroken Souls

When it seemed Captain Kyōraku would be disappointed if they didn’t catch anything, Renji took over fishing. In no time at all their basket was brimming with freshly caught trout. Kyōraku smiled at their bounty as they began to pack up for the long walk back to Academy. 

“This is lovely, just lovely,” the captain cooed. “Who taught you to be such an expert fisherman, Mr. Renji?”

“My mother,” Renji said slyly. When Kyōraku lifted his hat to peer at him with deep curiosity, Renji finally explained, “Necessity.”

“Ha! Oh, good one!” Kyōraku laughed heartily. Renji’s joke wasn’t nearly as clever as all that, but they were pretty drunk so it seemed hysterically brilliant to them both. It had been a cool autumn afternoon, spent mostly pretending to fish while enjoying the weather and Kyōraku’s elder brother’s fine sake. “But,” Kyōraku said after a moment of consideration. “I had no idea that a river ran through Inuzuri.”

“None do,” Renji explained, as he returned the last of the silver wear and plates he’d rinsed in the stream to the picnic basket. “Fishing was always a late night raiding expedition to the canals of the Sixty-Fifth.”

This seemed to sober Kyōraku suddenly. He stopped taking apart their makeshift pole to touch Renji’s arm lightly, “You risked being caught out-of-district to… go fishing?”

“Heh, not exactly--we dodged the patrols to eat,” Renji explained with a sad laugh. Thinking back on it, he frowned at a memory. When Kyōraku continued to peer at him, his big gray eyes full of concern, Renji shrugged and said, “I lost a friend to hard labor over a garbage run once. That sucked.”

All the things were packed and ready. Renji stood up and wiped his hands on his hakama, and started to gather the inn’s picnic basket as well as the pail of fish. He started down the path along the stream and only stopped when he realized Kyōraku was still crouched on the rocks staring at him with an open mouth.

“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked the captain, shouting to be heard over the sound of the rapids.

Kyōraku seemed to realize he was about to be left behind. He lifted his hakama with his hands, cautious of the hems trailing in the mud, like a woman with a skirt, as he picked his way over to Renji. “You have a friend serving time over what exactly?”

“Being caught out-of-district without proper authorization or whatever they call it,” Renji said. He gave Kyōraku a curious look. Renji would have thought that was obvious from the context of their conversation. Was the captain _that_ drunk?

“But, you said something else,” Kyōraku asked, finally come up beside Renji. “What did you say you were you doing?”

Once they were side-by-side, Renji turned back toward the road and started walking. “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know about a garbage run." Renji laughed a little, "Rukia said she preferred the term ‘urban foraging.’ Whatever you called it, it basically involved sneaking up a couple of districts and rooting around in people’s trash to find anything edible. It was the kind of thing we only did when there’d been a long stretch of a whole lot of nothing--when the littler ones were getting dangerously weak. So, it was kind of heartbreaking when Taro got busted for it. It seemed unfair he got sent down so hard, since it was such a stupid thing, and never really profitable. Half the time people got sicker on what they ate. But, it was pretty common to get picked up that way, actually. That’s why we’d go in big groups. You know, I'm sure you've heard what they called it--‘dog packs.’”

“Ah, yes,” Kyōraku nodded, holding onto his hat. “I’m afraid I’m mostly familiar with the phenomenon you describe from the other side. Shinigami like complain, you see. And, well, people from your district are rather well known for this trick of yours—breaking the law in such large numbers that it’s impossible to catch you all. And, I suppose the punishment is so harsh to keep people from just abandoning the rougher districts entirely; to essentially keep you in your place.”

“Yep,” Renji agreed, ducking under a pine tree branch that had grown to stretch over their riverside path. He nudged it up with the hand that held the mostly empty picnic basket so Kyōraku could pass easily underneath. 

“Ah, my, my,” The captain sighed as he gave Renji a thoughtful look as he went under the branch. “But I’m ashamed to say that I never really put it together with the idea that perhaps you were all out… what did you call it? Foraging?”

 _Eating shit other people threw away_ , Renji thought, but didn’t say, afraid it would sound much more bitter than he felt. _That’s the other reason people called us dogs; we’d eat anything._ Instead, he just nodded his head in agreement. 

Renji let the branch fall, and they continued on their way. The path widened here, as they moved down mountain towards the valley.

“Were so many in Inuzuri hungry?” Kyōraku said with genuine confusion. “That is, I was always led to believe that craving food was only a problem for those newly arrived in the Soul Society, and that, after time, the need to eat would go away.”

Renji shook his head. “Sure, they told us that too, but I never met anyone who completely gave up trying. It’s kind of a basic human impulse, sir. It’s… well, it makes you feel alive, and it’s… comforting, natural—even when the instinct drives you to dig through rot and filth. When you give that up, you’ve kind of given up wanting to be human, you know?”

“Ah,” Kyōraku said, though Renji wasn’t sure he really understood. It was a hard concept for people born inside the walls of the Seireitei to understand, especially someone like the captain. Kyōraku talked about the cycle of birth and rebirth, but he’d stepped off that treadmill some thousands of years ago--if he’d ever even been on it in the first place. The captain had been born a shinigami; Renji had not. Even though it had been a long time ago, the trauma of dying remained fresh in Renji’s mind—likewise, the need to cling to his humanity. 

“ _That’s_ why I’m having trouble accepting my demon!” Renji said as thought occurred to him. “I never gave up being human, even when it would have made sense to let go.”

Kyōraku rolled with this sudden shift in conversation easily. “Perhaps, but your reistsu made that harder—impossible, actually. Being a hungry ghost is a sign of strong spiritual pressure.”

“I know, sir,” Renji said. “That is, Rukia explained that to me when we started messing around with kidō. We'd get wicked hungry after that. But, I’d be hungry even if I were a demon, probably more so, right?”

“Being a demon is not the same as being a Hollow. There’s no compulsion to devour,” Kyōraku said with a sharpness that made Renji start. The captain must of noticed Renji's reaction because he managed a small smile after a little sigh. “My dear boy, please understand that a demon’s soul is as welcome in the Soul Society as any other,” he gestured broadly to the bucket Renji carried, “We have fish. We have birds—even insects. All animals exist here. All things! Thus, we have humans and demons alike. All unbroken souls come to the Soul Society.”

Unbroken? There was an interesting thought. So, demon or human, what mattered was less which you were, but whether or not you were whole. “Huh. So, what breaks a soul then?”

“It’s different for each. But rest assured, no matter what you went through in the last life, yours is intact or you wouldn’t be here; it’s that simple. However, your presence here does not guarantee that you were a good person—no, not at all; in fact, you could have been quite evil. It just means that whatever you faced, whatever your choices or experiences, they didn’t fracture you.”

“Heh, I could of told you that,” Renji said, readjusting the handle of the bucket of fish that was getting heavy in his hand. “I’m still a hard one to break.”

“Indeed,” Kyōraku said with a smile. 

#

They donated the day’s catch to the innkeeper, returned her empty picnic basket, and packed up their things for the road. But, because she insisted that they stay on to dinner in order to enjoy the fruits of their labor, the light was fading from the sky when they finally started back to Academy.

“You don’t have to accompany me, sir,” Renji said. “I’m fine the rest of the way on my own.”

Shaking his head, Kyōraku glanced at the horizon where the moon was beginning to rise. “At this rate, you may need me to vouch for you so that you’re not counted AWOL after the midnight hour. You only have a weekend pass.”

Renji nodded, “Yeah, I guess there is that.”

“Besides, if I so heartlessly abandoned you now, I would be denied the pleasure of your company, dear boy!” Kyōraku slapped him on the back jovially. But, as they continued along the highway, Renji noticed that Kyōraku not only set a brisker pace than usual, but he also kept checking behind them on occasion. The captain kept up his normal pleasant, innocuous chatter, but Renji found himself watching the shadows cautiously, as well. His fingers fell to his left hip, unconsciously reaching to curl around a sheath.

“…You should have seen Jūshirō’s face! Priceless, I tell you, priceless.” 

They heard it at the same time—the rustle in the honeysuckle bushes growing along the roadside ditch and, more ominous, the unmistakable click of a sword being released from its scabbard.

Kyōraku shouted, “Behind me!”

Renji knew the captain’s intent was to shield him from the attack, but he could see another bandit approaching from the rear. So he pushed his back close up against Kyōraku’s in a defensive posture. In fact, they drew at the same time. Kyōraku’s diasho pair stopped one opponent each, and Renji automatically raised a hand to block the thrust of the third. 

Renji should have lost an arm. 

In fact, when Renji realized he gripped the red-ribboned hilt of his dreams, he had to use a touch of shunpō to shift to meet the enemy’s blade with steel instead of flesh. Behind his mask, the bandit looked just about as surprised as Renji to see him holding a zanpaktō. 

“Retreat!” the bandit shouted to his colleagues. 

Kyōraku turned with a bright laugh. “Too late, I’m afraid. They abandoned you the instant they were disarmed.”

Now that not only Zabimaru and Katen Kyōkotsu stood between him and the enemy, Renji hazard a glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, gleaming in the moonlight, six katana lay scattered on the dusty road.

The captain had managed to defeat half-a-dozen opponents and spill no blood? Amazing. Especially since he still smelled half-drunk. 

When Renji his attention turned back, it seemed the other bandit had fled as well.

“Ah,” Kyōraku said, his voice full of admiration. “Such a strong, handsome friend you have in Zabimaru, Mr. Renji! And, so loyal! I should have known he would come to your aid.”

“Really? Because I had no idea,” Renji said, staring at the zanpaktō in wonder. He turned it over in his hand, feeling the heft of it--the weight of which felt so familiar, so right. As Renji's adrenaline rush began to fade, however, so did the blade. “No!” Renji said, grasping at the thinning air. “Wait!’

Kyōraku’s hand was a sympathetic squeeze on his shoulder. “He’ll be fully ready when you are, son. That’s all you have to be patient for now.”

Staring forlornly at his now empty hand, Renji thought, _graduation couldn't come soon enough._


End file.
